In traditional computing a single central processing unit (CPU) sequentially executes a single instruction on a single piece of data in a single stream, executing one operation at a time. As the data processing demands of the world increased, the amount of data to be operated upon exploded.
In stream processing multiple data streams from multiple sources can be processed in real time. “Streaming” or stream processing means receiving streams of data, processing the data and streaming it back out as a single flow.